


Fragile Bodies of Touch and Taste

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-11
Updated: 2011-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys (and they are boys) are Seeing America.  Xavier gets hungry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fragile Bodies of Touch and Taste

That night they were ravenous.  

Erik kept them moving through the first hours of the dark, hands  
on the wheel like he could feel the car's inner life.  Wonderful  
hands, really.  Graceful in a way Charles had never seen in a man  
before.  Long fingers trailed back to long wrists that vanished  
into the still-buttoned white cuffs of his shirt.  Immaculate.

Charles remembered waiting by the car in his chair earlier that  
day when Erik came out of the filling station.  He was beautiful  
in that sunlight.  Brilliance filtered even through the heavy  
trees, cut across the station's painted-plywood walls and struck  
the car hood, filled the unoccupied space of the road.  And then  
Erik, who stepped so carefully down the two small steps that  
Charles could never have surmounted, came into it.  Luminous,  
standing there.  White shirt perfectly ironed even in the day's  
heat, pressed pants, heavy, clunky immigrant shoes that Charles  
had never been able to persuade him to abandon.  All of his white  
hair slicked back and shaped into a graceful arc around his head,  
decadently long in comparison to the military fuzz that most men  
were wearing.  Snowy radiance around him like something holy.

Erik turned, caught his eye.  Jerked his chin at the second shed  
out of which a woman was selling fruit.  Asking if he wanted  
something.  Charles nodded.  Followed Erik over without leaving  
his place, just lurking at the surface of the other man's mind.

With his mental touch so light, Charles got only faint  
impressions of what happened next.  Erik asked for something --  
he had a flash of the smell of peaches -- and waited, aloof,  
while she bagged them for him.  She must have heard his accent;  
it was still present in the hard edges of his words.  And tilted  
her head, and asked her next question, something simple, 'is that  
everything' maybe, in German.

Erik only looked at her.

'Come on, little one.  How often do you get to talk to your own  
people?'  Her smile.  Crooked peasant teeth.

Those long, beautiful fingers unbuttoned those perfect cuffs and  
rolled the left sleeve back to his elbow, exposing the string of  
numbers that lay static just under his skin.

'You aren't my people.'

Charles could feel her shock strike him in a long wave even at a  
distance of fifty yards.  Hard on its heels there was regret, and  
a kind of sick fear.

'I'm sorry.  I'm sorry.  I didn't . . .'

'Take your money.'  Erik took the peaches, turned his back on  
her, walked back.  Paused to lay the bag on the car's hood and  
rolled his sleeve back down to his wrist.

"Erik, I --" He didn't know what.  He hadn't found any kind of  
balm for the damage that Germany had inflicted on his friend.

"Do you want to leave?  I'll lift you into the car if you're  
ready."  For the length of a single breath, he was graced with  
the brilliant smile Erik unleashed only very occasionally.  A  
reassurance.  And he nodded, and was lifted.

They kept driving.  Charles found the bag of peaches at some  
point and opened it.  Cradled the fruit into his hand for long  
minutes while Erik watched the road.  Sank his teeth into its  
flesh only when he couldn't resist it any longer.  The instant it  
touched his mouth, he realized how much it felt like human skin.    
And by then, there was juice running down his face and the smell  
had exploded through the car.

Erik reached over without looking and took the peach out of his  
hand, lifted it to his own mouth and bit, then returned the  
remaining fruit.  Licked the escaped flavour of it away with the  
delicate tip of his tongue.

That was the fifth day of their trip.  Charles had spent two  
weeks planning it.  Since the night they'd sat across from each  
other at dinner in New York, and he'd watched Erik watch the  
room.  Shadowed blue eyes that focussed and refocused constantly,  
reading everyone for possible danger.  They only centred on him  
when the two of them were fighting; even a spirited conversation  
only demanded half of Erik's attention.  So Charles had started a  
fight.  Words he couldn't remember now, but the sentiments were  
those they'd been baiting each other with for months.  That Erik  
behaved like a hunted animal.  That it was a hideous way to live,  
and couldn't he rest and trust someone, please, just once, just  
for an hour.  Please.  Pleading in the midst of the anger for  
Erik to relax.  Erik's fear was a palpable thing, a dangerous  
thing.  It consumed whole cities.

To which Erik threw back, predictably enough, that he had reason  
enough to be watchful.  Wouldn't the people in this room be  
interested to know of the monsters among them?  Himself.    
Charles.  He'd seen how people reacted to difference.

Erik was paranoid.

Charles was naive.  

What happened in Germany and Poland was horrific, but it didn't  
reflect the nature of humanity.  An exception -- an appalling  
one, but an exception, not the rule.  For them, and for other  
mutants after them, it was going to be different.

All right, then.  Prove it.

In that moment, he'd been Erik's absolute focus.  It didn't quite  
show in the man's face, but even at his most alert he tended to  
look like a sleepy cat.  Something about the eyes.  They'd looked  
so satisfied when he only nodded, accepting the victory and  
moving past it with the grace of a man who took no particular  
pleasure in winning.

Charles stayed up that night, studied maps, checked details, and  
the next day he called his parents about the money.  Six days  
after that to arrange the details -- a bank draft, a car -- and  
another two to persuade Erik to humour him in this.  Four more to  
pack, and to contemplate what his life would be like while he was  
completely at this man's mercy.  The family's money had provided  
a rare and beautiful thing in his collapsable chair, and he was  
grateful for it, having spent more months than he cared to recall  
in a quasi-Victorian horror that he'd taken great pleasure in  
destroying later.  But he hadn't yet mastered the art of lifting  
himself into vehicles, and Erik's inclinations didn't always  
match his own.  He could force his friend to help him, he  
supposed, but Erik would never, ever forgive him.  So he'd left  
his dependence on the other man as an offering between them -- a  
vulnerability on his part to balance Erik's mistrust of the  
people they'd set out to observe.

So far Erik hadn't challenged him on it.  He was there usually  
before Charles asked for help, steadying and spotting when  
Charles could manage most of a task for himself, lifting  
dispassionately when it was necessary.  Charles realized he'd  
been hungry since Erik had lifted him that afternoon.  For those  
few seconds, his face had been pressed into Erik's throat, and  
what he'd smelled sank tendrils into his body.  Wonderful.    
Beautiful.  Warm body-smell with a delicate edge he couldn't  
place.

The road's dark gave way to the lighted court of the next motel.    
Erik left him in the car and went to find them a room.  Came back  
with the glow of the main office back-lighting him.  Charles  
could imagine wings in the midst of that aura.  One of the rebel  
angels.  

And later, both of them in the darkened room, lying fully clothed  
and silent on twin beds.  The close air and dust were things  
Charles had come to associate with Erik's safe havens.  Hidden  
corners where the soot in his greying hair made him invisible to  
patrolling storm troopers.  The prefabricated apartment in Israel  
that had already started to smell of the desert only a few months  
after its construction.  The attic of the house in Westchester  
county where he retreated like a fugitive to read in the still  
hours of the afternoon.  Somewhere that Charles couldn't reach  
him; too many stairs between them when even one was too much of  
an obstacle.  Since he'd lost the use of his legs, the only way  
Charles had seen those corners of the house was through Erik's  
eyes.

Or the haven of Charles' own rooms, the ones he had to be carried  
to these days, where he took care of as many things as possible  
himself, and ignored the dust that settled on those things that  
remained stubbornly out of reach.

He wondered what his parents thought they did in the afternoons  
when both he and Eric simply stayed at the mansion, closeted  
together for hours with even the servants locked out.  Probably,  
his family thought that they were lovers.  He supposed it wasn't  
implausible.  But he wondered how aware they were of Erik's  
brittleness, the constant underlying threat that he might shatter  
at a wrong touch.  

Whatever he knew about Erik, he'd gathered in those hours.    
Liquid sunlight in his room, and both of them stretched out on  
his bed, fully clothed and half-asleep.  Watching each other.    
He'd felt Erik's guard relax gradually, reassured by Charles'  
silent promise that nothing could penetrate the walls of the  
house and the psychic walls he'd erected around them both.    
Sleepy bedroom eyes under their silver lashes.  His own mind's  
eye absorbing every surface detail, then stroking palpably to let  
Erik know that he was slipping deeper.

//warm light warm body hand resting on my hip      sun in my eyes  
reflecting off the painting's glass      Charles' body smell warm  
quiet so quiet in here//

It was the first time he'd touched Erik's thoughts and not felt  
dirty afterwards.  There wasn't anything present that he could  
feel like a rapist for touching, only a drowsy awareness of his  
surroundings and a startling trust in Charles' ability to protect  
both of them.

That trust was missing, now, but Erik hadn't left him yet, at  
least.  The motel room's dinginess swelled around him and muffled  
their breath.  Charles would have been more than content to rest  
if Erik had been within arm's reach.  He hadn't entirely  
reconciled himself to being a cripple, yet; he would have loved  
to be able to get up and crawl into Erik's bed with him.  Bury  
his nose in that slick white hair and whisper love and  
protectiveness into the hollow places in his mind.

He was starving, he realized.  He hadn't eaten since early  
afternoon, and his body was achingly hollow.  The remaining  
peaches were somewhere in the depths of the car; for an instant,  
he decided he'd get up and get them, then remembered that he  
couldn't.  And cursed, silently, in all the languages he'd  
learned so far.  English, French, Latin.  "Choice" words that  
Erik had taught him in Polish.  He was shocked to find that there  
were tears prickling behind his lids.

Rolling onto his side was a greater effort than it had been once,  
but he could manage it.  He needed a few minutes of privacy, even  
if the only barriers between them were the curve of his body and  
the shallow space between the two beds.  Closed off, he could let  
the ache spread a little, wallow for a minute or two before he  
shunted the self-pity away.

Behind him, Erik said, "Will you be alright if I leave for a few  
minutes?"

"Yes."  Thinking, go away.  He could feel the other man behind  
him, very close.  Go away.

The door closed and left him in the warm darkness.

He stayed there, curled and aching, pitying himself for a twenty-  
year-old boy who would never walk again.  He'd traded that  
mobility for a new set of senses, but there was no one who could  
teach him to use them, and too often he simply had to close them  
off.  Blinded and crippled both.  Not fair.  And travelling with  
an emotional cripple whose mental touch scraped like broken glass  
at unpredictable moments.  Someone ought to have locked them both  
in some dingy attic, not turned them loose to wreak what havoc  
they could on the American countryside.

Laughing softly at himself, already rubbing the handful of tears  
away.

"That's an interesting sound.  What's so funny?"

Charles started, then rolled over.  Erik was perched on the other  
bed, watching him.  He had a pocket knife open in one hand and a  
peach in the other.

"I'm impressed," Charles said.  "I think that's the first time  
you've ever managed to sneak up on me."

Again that smile.  He could only get faint impressions of it in  
the dark, but Erik's mind opened slightly with it, and he was  
mentally stroked by the soft, almost innocent pleasure the other  
man offered.

"I thought you might be hungry.  We missed supper."  Long, pale  
fingers carved a slice of fruit away from the central stone and  
offered it to him, balanced across the blade.  He leaned forward  
and took it, let it slide into his mouth.

"Thank you.  Can you help me up?"

"I probably could, but stay where you are."

"I can't eat like this."  Balanced between his side and back,  
half-turned towards his companion.

"You can if I feed you."

"Bastard.  Help me up."

"Charles, please."  Wistful.

He gave in.  "This isn't fair."

"You can do something terribly unfair to me later."

Long fingers brushed his hairline for a moment.  Already far back  
on his head.  He was going to be bald before he was thirty.    
Another in a long list of things that weren't fair.

"Aren't you the one who goes on about the benevolence of the  
world?"  Erik again, laughing.  Charles cocked his head off the  
pillow.  "You're broadcasting."

"Sorry."

He let his head drop back in frustration.  The day *had* been  
beautiful, but at some point in this evening he'd been thrown  
off, and he was still fighting his way out of misery.

"Shh.  It's alright."  Muted strains of Polish underlying the  
English.

More fruit, stroking over his lips.  He opened his mouth to it,  
but couldn't reach it immediately.  Its rough inner curve brushed  
his teeth and retreated.  Only came fully into his mouth when he  
let the small begging sound at the back of his throat break  
loose.  And then he could chew and swallow.

The next piece that touched his lips he snatched and chewed  
desperately.  More soft laughter.  A silence.  And then Erik bent  
over him and locked that wonderful, delicate mouth onto his.    
Kissed him, so deeply that he could have been eating the other  
man.  Peach flesh in his mouth, in Erik's, passing back and forth  
between them.  Teeth rubbing against his own.

Sometime in that kiss, he pulled Erik in close enough that the  
other man was lying across him.  Hands on his shoulders lifted  
him hard to Erik's mouth.  He was going to be eaten.  He loved  
it.  He wished he still had the use of his legs, to lock the  
other body against his.

Then more laughter, close against his face.  "I was about to give  
up on ever seducing you.  How dare you be so beautiful lying  
there?"

He might have answered, but his belly growled.  "Erik, I'm  
*hungry*."

Hard peach flesh in his mouth and another kiss.  He wasn't sure  
how much of it he swallowed and how much Erik did, but he opened  
his mouth for the next bite and shared it too.  

Erik's thigh between his was only a soft demand compared to that  
mouth.  The hard pressure of muscle and bone rubbed against his  
groin, made him whimper, but the mouth swallowed him.  Fruit and  
warmth between them.  This was the deepest touch they'd allowed  
themselves, and he was already aware that Erik was shaking.

"Are you alright?" Charles asked.

Erik nodded against the hollow of his throat, but didn't  
immediately raise his head.  When he withdrew, it was only a  
little, and Charles could hear the knife scrape along the peach  
pit.

Clever fingers unbuttoned his shirt to where it tucked into his  
pants, then pulled the tails loose, exposing his chest and belly.    
Erik's shaded eyes watching him in the dark.

//is this alright//

//yessssss//

He'd expected a kiss.  He wasn't prepared for the cold touch that  
began just below his nipple.  The fruit traced over him, reaching  
his breastbone and then trailing down to mid-chest.  Erik's mouth  
followed after it, opened wide and pressed in.  Teeth scraped  
over his ribs.  He was going to be a mass of bruises when this  
was over.  Mouth on his ribcage, mouth on his belly, easing over  
the softer flesh.

Erik's hands against his body broke the peach slice into three  
segments, laid them along the waistband of his pants.  Then the  
other man bent and took the first one, ate it with his mouth  
resting against Charles' hip.  

He'd been pushing at the barriers that he and Erik had imposed on  
his psychic touches months ago.  Too easy to be distracted by the  
wet mouth touching his flesh and the breath ghosting across his  
skin, too easy to go where he wasn't welcome.  But he realized  
gradually that Erik was inviting him deeper.  Had dismantled the  
barriers between them as well as any non-telepath could be  
expected to do, imagining himself naked from the inside out, then  
laying that nakedness against his lover's mind.

Wondrous, like another set of senses opened.  He was sunk almost  
fully into Erik when the man bent and lifted the next bite of  
fruit into his mouth with lips and tongue.  Tasted the sugars in  
it.  The salt of his skin.  Erik's desire and his brittleness  
laid out against him, wanting this and not truly ready for it.    
Begging for it.  The third piece, resting below his navel, where  
the thin line of his pubic hair vanished into his trousers.    
Fantastically erogenous, and Charles found he had enough  
dexterity to arch against those lips.

//oh god please yes don't stop//

Licked him gently there for long minutes, then Erik slid back up  
his body and settled against him.  Opened his mouth in a huge  
kiss that swallowed whatever he'd been going to say next.

Kissing him for hours in the dark, letting their bodies fit  
together.  Thinking how he'd been starving for this.


End file.
